This is My Story

Sunday, July 19, 2009

So this is what happened and how awesomely God shows us things! On Thursday I was walking from the library with my two teenage daughters and my two year old daughter in the stroller. So my oldest was pushing Mimi and my second oldest and I were walking behind them. We’re all laughing and talking when my knee decided it was tired and no longer felt like bending, but neglected to pass along that information to my brain. So down and down I went. Fell straight forward on my hand and left leg (my knee decided to play catch up at that point and bend under me). So there I was on the sidewalk, trying to rate if the pain was worse than childbirth and trying to figure out if I just broke my knee. The girls helped me up and picked my shoe up that flew off in the “crash” and began searching for my cell, to call who, I can’t tell you. I said a prayer again to Jesus and begin to walk the two blocks home. My leg is bleeding and my pride was too. The first block wasn’t so bad, but when I got to the second block… oh how my knee was screaming, “Warning! Warning, Will Robinson!” You know, from that old sci-fi show?As I was singing bits of hymnals and humming to keep from crying out and to keep the tears on the inside, I started to get a revelation, clarity of sorts. FYI, I try to think logically and creatively in nearly everything I do. So I had to in this instance to distract my brain. This is what I came up with or better yet, what I believe God revealed to me.That searing pain I was feeling was my body’s way of telling me, “Hey, there is NO skin here! There is substantial bleeding! There is an open wound! Get attention here ASAP!” The more the insides of my knee and calf were exposed, the more warnings and alerts I got. When I thought of it that way, it calmed me down and relaxed me a bit. I was able to accept the pain because it was for a reason. I was able to accept the pain as a way of my body telling me intervention was needed. I wasn’t whole any longer. My knee needed attention. I finally made to my couch where my daughters rushed to get gauze, alcohol and A&D ointment. I told myself and my knee, help was coming. Just hold on and help was coming. Once I got the bandage on and my knee propped up on pillows, the pain quieted. It didn’t go away, just spoke clearly, not yelling anymore.I began to think and wonder, is that what the Holy Spirit does for us? It stays with us everywhere we go, sometimes unnoticed, unappreciated like skin. Then the second that skin is injured and has to scream out in pain, is when we notice and feel empathy for it and want to listen to it the way we should? So many times, we cry out to Jesus, thank the Lord our God (work the muscles and drink milk for strong bones) but we neglect listening to the Holy Spirit (check for abnormal moles and boo-boos). Sometimes in our walk with Christ, the most important relationship is with the Holy Spirit. Jesus said he was sending a Comforter for us while he was away (John 15:26). Yet we somehow forget about him until worship service as we sing “Come Holy Spirit” and soon as we get what we need and time is going fast, our actions sing “Go Holy Spirit until Next Time”. Every day, every moment should be next time. The Word tells us that the Holy Spirit is to keep us in remembrance of the word and works of Jesus (John 14:26). The Holy Spirit is a person not a force. So like our skin, without it, the rest of our body would be in peril. As it says in 1 Corinthians 12:13, for by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is the act whereby the believer becomes united with Christ. We must take care and listen to the Holy Spirit. We must listen and not wait for him to scream at us! Warning us that our spirit is in pain! That we are forgetting what Jesus taught us and what he expects of us. It’s not until we cry out in pain and see our own blood, not the blood of Jesus pouring out. It’s then we realize something is wrong and looking to God for the answers. Meanwhile our knee was on the verge of being scraped but the signal was lost in translation. We must learn to have a personal relationship with the entire Trinity. We cannot continue to think the Holy Spirit is for us to use like tattoos and to hold piercings, to make us look and feel good on the outside for others to see, yet we’re not nourishing the relationship by knowing every inch of it.I for one pray that I can listen to the Holy Spirit more and not wait until the screaming of “Warning Will Robinson!” I want to hear the whispers, not just the screams. After all, Jesus himself told us that the Comforter will abide with us forever. That’s a long time not to speak to a person, don’t you think?